Suicide

We were standing and talking on my back porch. "I could never do this twice," Dave said. He was speaking about not having the courage to try sobriety a second time. Dave was my dearest friend. We were closer than brothers. He had been sober 10 years then. I could tell he was thinking about the bottle again. I could see it in his eyes. "Well, the good news is, you don't have to," I said. "Just don't pick up that first drink." Weeks later, Dave came over for Thanksgiving dinner. Dave was a big eater, but he had four plates of food. There was something different about him. He was anxious. Squirrely. Not himself. "You OK?" I asked. ...

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